The first and most obvious advantage of a cadastral survey and record of rights
is that together they give a true and exact description of the legal situation of
rights in land at any moment. Only a cadastral map can provide the means of
accurate identification necessary to this end and only a continuous and
comprehensive record of rights can give an accurate picture of the position at
any particular time.

Most of the advantages of the system of survey and record derive directly
from the immediate availability of this exact information. The person legally
recognized as possessing a right, the nature of the right, and the exact
boundaries of the land concerned are at once clear, and any persons engaged in
any transaction relating to the right knows at once how they stand. If the record
is one of absolute title, the person whose name is recorded in the register, and
no other, can dispose of the rights. If the register is one of possession only,
there is at least a very strong presumption that the person registered as in
possession is the person who can dispose of the rights and a virtual certainty that
his or her interest in the transaction cannot be neglected. The possibility of fraud
or of subsequent legal difficulties are thus either eliminated or greatly reduced.

Registration also provides adequate protection to all classes of rightholder,
including absentees, persons with reversionary or pre-emptive rights, or those
with dormant rights of any kind. It also protects any person or class of persons
who have rights in easements or other restrictive rights. A public right of way
is protected by registration equally with a right to restrict building or land use.
Communal or private rights of grazing, extraction of timber, collection of forest
produce, use of water, etc. whether on private or public lands, are publicly
defined and safeguarded.

Registration also simplifies control over the acquisition of new rights. In
cases where prescriptive rights accrue after a definite period, registration
provides immediate evidence that the right has been established. It also prevents
the acquisition of prescriptive rights where this is contrary to public policy.
Generally it provides a ready means of regularizing all informal kinds of
occupation or types of user. All dealings in land are greatly facilitated by
registration. Boundaries are directly and accurately known, the nature and extent
of existing rights are at once clear, long and costly inquiries into title are
avoided, the need for the services of lawyers or other intermediaries is reduced
to a minimum, and generally all transactions in land can be carried out with
increased cheapness, speed and security. This applies, of course, not only to
transactions involving a permanent transfer of the right, but also to temporary
limitations and mortgaging. If, for example, mortgages are registered, then any
persons intending to lend money on the security of land can quickly ascertain the
exact position in regard to previous encumbrances. They will thus obtain a
substantially greater measure of security for their money. Similarly, borrowers
whose rights are registered can borrow money more easily and quickly, and
probably also more cheaply, on the security of their land.

All classes benefit from the elimination of worthless documents purporting
to be valid instruments establishing or conveying rights in land. This kind of
document may be a real danger both to private and public interests at those
stages of social and economic development where traditional systems begin to
feel the impact of external influences. In the same kind of situation (and in many
others) the publicity given to transfers of title by a system of compulsory
registration greatly facilitates the protection designed to be given to economically
weak classes of the population by legislation restricting alienation of land by or
to specific classes of persons. One of the great difficulties of enforcing such
legislation lies in devising a sure method of bringing apparent breaches of the
law promptly to the notice of the authorities charged with the duty of enforcing
it.

Generally the result of compulsory registration of rights in land is likely
to be a very considerable reduction in the volume of litigation about land, with
a consequent great saving of unproductive expenditure which the agricultural
landholder can ill afford.

Finally there are the great advantages which the existence of an up-to-date
and reliable map and record of all existing rights in land gives to every branch
of the government that deals with the administration of land. Some of these
advantages obviously follow directly from the existence of an unimpeachable
record, for example the simplification of the work of the courts, increased ease
in carrying out the acquisition of land for public purposes, improved
administration of forests and other public lands, and so on. Other advantages are
more indirect and perhaps less immediately obvious, but none the less very real.
An attempt to summarize these will be made in the following chapter, but there
is one group of advantages which, in a series of papers dealing primarily with
the various aspects of land tenure and agrarian reform must be classified as
“direct” and should therefore find a place in the present chapter. These
advantages are those that good cadastral maps and a sound system of registration
of rights bring to the appreciation of a national agrarian situation and to the
elaboration of measures for its improvement and reform.

An unsatisfactory agrarian situation is usually forced on the public
attention by the appearance of acute symptoms of malaise in the rural economy
and especially by the depression of certain classes of the rural population and
even by active agrarian unrest. These symptoms often become manifest only at
a relatively late stage in the decay of the existing agrarian structure, or they may
be brought to an acute stage by a sudden economic disturbance such as a
worldwide slump in commodity prices or by the effects of a war which can
place unusual strains on the rural work force which becomes depleted by the
demands of military service. Or again the return of those who have been
working in foreign countries and hence have experience of different conditions
and practices may bring into prominence rural stresses and strains previously
concealed.

Yet defects in land tenure systems and the agrarian structure generally do
not develop like mushrooms in a night. They have been there latent but not
inactive, for years or even for generations before a crisis flares up. Sometimes
they have been well known and simply disregarded; sometimes they have been
seen by a few officials and students of agrarian affairs and duly reported to the
government, which however did nothing because the action necessary ran
counter to established public policy. More often, however, they have not come
clearly to the notice of the authorities because the latter had no ready means of
obtaining exact and up-to-date information on what was happening in relation to
the land and its occupants. There was no close and continuous contact with rural
life and consequently no means of feeling the pulse of the agricultural
community. A good cadastral survey and system of registration of rights
provides the material for this close and continuous contact, both by providing
an up-to-date picture of the situation and by ensuring that the government has
a staff which is in constant touch with the situation itself. This is especially the
case where registration offices are established in the villages or small towns and
the register is maintained or checked by field inspections. The cadastral maps
themselves and the information contained in the land registers also provide a
good, and indeed the essential, basis for the preparation and execution of a
programme of land reform or for any other measures taken to remove defects
in the agrarian economy. Large-scale maps are, in fact, necessary to the success
of any measure of land reform that involves either the redistribution of existing
holdings or the settlement of new areas. If maps do not exist they will have to
be made, and once a policy of reform has been adopted there may be little time
for this. The registers provide the factual basis on which the reforms must rest.
If this basis does not exist, it can scarcely be improvised and the reforms will,
to a large extent, be a leap into the dark which may be full of danger.

This matter is of such importance that one or two examples may suitably
be given. Many schemes of land reform which involve the expropriation of large
landholders contain provisions exempting from expropriation land up to a
particular maximum area held by a single landholder or land of particular types
or used in particular ways. This kind of provision is obviously unworkable
unless the boundaries and areas of individual estates, the type of land contained
in each estate and the use to which the land is put are known. This knowledge
can only be provided with the exactitude required by means of a cadastral
survey. Again the distribution of expropriated lands among the new holders will
demand a detailed demarcation of the new holdings which, in the absence of
large-scale maps, can only be undertaken painfully and inefficiently by actual
measurements on the ground. Similarly no tenancy legislation that involves the
determination of rents of particular holdings or the grant of improved security
to tenants can be enforced effectively unless the boundaries and areas of the
tenancies are accurately known from good maps. The advantages derived from
the existence of a cadastral survey in the administration of agricultural credit
have already been mentioned. Perhaps the most obvious example of all is that
of a plan for the consolidation of fragmented holdings which will be virtually
impossible to carry out unless the precise boundaries and ownership of the
individual plots and fields are known.

It is no answer to these arguments to say that in some countries agrarian
reforms have been attempted and even carried out without good maps or exact
information as to existing rights. In these cases the immediate result of the
reforms has usually been a state of uncertainty and confusion which postponed
their effectiveness for years or at the best, a slowing down of the rate of their
progress to a politically dangerous and economically unjustifiable degree. Good
work in agrarian improvement demands exact information of the kind that only
a cadastral survey can give.